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Stories as Ethnographic Dilemma in Longitudinal Research
Author(s) -
Friedl Erika
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
anthropology and humanism
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.153
H-Index - 17
eISSN - 1548-1409
pISSN - 1559-9167
DOI - 10.1525/anhu.2004.29.1.5
Subject(s) - ethnography , dilemma , indigenous , sociology , aesthetics , gender studies , anthropology , media studies , epistemology , art , philosophy , ecology , biology
In this article, the author examines the ways her informants' stories have taken on lives of their own over a 37‐year engagement in fieldwork. Taking a practical approach, the author draws on personal experiences to ask: What is the ethnographer to do with stories that shrink, metamorphose, or disappear over time? The author suggests that these transformations run along lines of indigenous logic, and concludes by calling for the elevation of “the study of the lives of stories” to a topic of ethnographic inquiry in itself.